The technology and market research firm’s forecast for the industrial and commercial EV market says that the hybrid and pure electric cars market may not see a profit at all in the next 10 years, with the exception of Toyota‘s hybrid models. The main reason is that electric cars depend heavily on government support that could change at any time, unlike commercial and industrial vehicles, which are independent.

Companies like Toyota Material Handling, for example, make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from the sales of forklifts, IDTechEx says. Parent company Toyota Industries saw a 92 percent jump in profits for the second quarter this year, compared to the same period in 2012.

Different categories of commercial and industrial vehicles dominate in different parts of the world for sales. Europe buys the most forklifts while China leads the world in the number of electric buses it buys. Japan and the US lead in electric cars. Other EVs like airport ground support vehicles and on-road delivery vehicles are more evenly distributed across the world.

This week Nissan debuted its electric taxi and says it’s in the final development phase of its second mass production zero-emission vehicle, an electric delivery van.

The automaker launched the e-NV200 electric taxi in Barcelona. The vehicle will also be introduced in other big cities around the world and will begin production in 2014 in Barcelona. Also this week, Nissan announced it is in the final development phase of its second mass production zero-emission vehicle, the e-NV200 compact van, scheduled for launch in 2014. The company has been working with several large commercial fleets in global markets since 2011 to understand how the e-NV200 test van performs under real operating conditions.